An Accidental Life (26 page)

Peter was in the office when he got the call from Rose Marie, Rebecca’s secretary downtown. His hand tightened into a fist as he held the phone and listened.

“Amalise Catoir has taken Rebecca to the hospital, Mr. Jacobs. They went to Baptist Hospital and Rebecca asked me to call you. To meet her there.”

“What happened?”

“She, um, was having cramps all morning and . . .”

“Why didn’t she call me! When did she leave?”

“Uh, they left about five minutes ago. She was having those cramps and then she began bleeding. I’ve called her doctor, Dr. Matlock, and told the nurse there what was going on. She said he would meet her at the hospital right away.” Rose Marie paused. “They’re going to the emergency room.”

“Thanks,” Peter said as he stood and slammed down the telephone. “Molly? Molly.”

Molly appeared within seconds in the doorway of his office. “Yes, Peter?”

“Call Judge Bridey, will you? Tell him an emergency has come up and we’ll need to reschedule the Cleary hearing this afternoon.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s in a half-hour, at three, and if Bridey won’t—”

“Is Rebecca all right?”

“—reschedule, send Russell down there. Just give him the file and tell him if he can’t convince defense counsel to move the hearing, he’ll have to do the best he can. And no, Rebecca’s not all right.”

He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and began forcing his arms into the sleeves. “Rebecca’s on her way to the hospital. Say a prayer this isn’t a miscarriage.”

Molly stepped aside. “I will. I certainly will,” she said as he flew by.

“Thanks, Molly.”

With the traffic at the toll bridge and the lights, driving took thirty minutes from the courthouse in Gretna. Peter wheeled around Lee Circle and down St. Charles Avenue, hanging a right on Napoleon, praying all the way. And still, parking took another seven minutes, and counting five more to get into the building and three or four to find out where to go, Peter arrived in the emergency room only about twenty minutes after Amalise and Rebecca arrived.

He found Amalise standing in the emergency room hallway by herself, outside a closed door. When she spotted Peter, she lifted her hand. He hurried toward her and they hugged. There were tears in Amalise’s eyes.

Seeing her tears, a wave of sheer panic rose. “What’s happening?” he said, struggling for control. He moved toward the door, and Amalise put her hand out to stop him.

“She’s in there with the doctor,” she said. “She’s frightened, Peter. I know she wants you in there, but the doctor’s probably examining her and you should probably just wait right here for now.”

He hesitated, and then nodded, letting his arms fall to his sides as he stared at the door. “What do you think happened, Amalise?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But Rebecca says the doctor’s a good man; he knows what he’s doing.”

He didn’t hear anything. Just closed his eyes and sank back against the wall, feeling limp. Amalise stood silently beside him. Peter’s chin dropped to his chest and he was quiet.

Please, let the baby live. And let Rebecca be all right.

He would be Rebecca’s strength if she fell apart, he resolved. Remembering all the discussions they’d had over the years about never having a child, he almost shook his head. A knot of fear in his chest tightened at the thought of what might now be happening on the other side of that door. He couldn’t bring himself to think any further and there came a hammering in his chest. All the tricks that he’d learned over the years about remaining cool under fire failed him now. He tossed prayers to heaven wildly, hoping they’d create a blanket that could cover Rebecca and the child.

Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes seemed to turn to hours.

At last the door opened. The doctor came out and through the open door he could see Rebecca lying on a table with a white sheet pulled up to her neck. Her knees were up, her arms folded over her chest, her head was turned toward the wall and he could see her shoulders shaking. As he started toward the door, the doctor stepped aside and he walked in. He heard the door close and he could hear the doctor moving around behind him. Walking over to Rebecca, he pulled up a chair and sat down beside her.

“Rebbe, I’m here.”

She turned her head to him and he saw that she was crying. Then she reached out and he leaned down and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He cupped her face in both hands, holding her eyes, struggling to read her thoughts, wanting to know, and not wanting to know.

“It’s going to be all right, Peter,” she said.

He froze, afraid to hope. What then?

But she released him and looked over his shoulders, and so he turned, watching the doctor’s face.

Dr. Matlock nodded. “The bleeding has stopped, for now. She’ll need bed rest for the next few weeks; and then she’ll take it easy for the remainder of her term.” He gave Rebecca a look. “No going down to the office, nothing like that.”

Peter took a deep breath and let it out.

Rebecca nodded.

“We’ll do an ultrasound and keep her here tonight,” Matlock said to Peter. “But I’m fairly certain that what we’ve got here is what I suspected before, placenta previa. The test will confirm how much of the cervix is covered.”

All right. Rebecca and the baby would be all right.

Those were the only words he heard at first. Holding onto Rebecca, Peter dropped his head, pressing his face into the soft curve in her neck and squeezing his eyes together. Rebecca rubbed circles over his back with one hand, and her other hand stroked his hair. Her touch was soothing. He closed his eyes, blinking back the tears.

He heard things in bits and pieces after that. Not unusual. Bed rest again. Should be all right. Caesarean. He sat up and turned to Dr. Matlock at that last part.

“We’ll just have to see; might not be necessary. It’s too early to know.” Matlock bent and stretched his fingers, one hand, then the other. “As the baby grows, the uterus stretches. So it’s possible the previa could be out of the way by the time of delivery, or if it’s just marginal, we could still have a natural birth.” He spoke in a smooth, practiced way as he added, not to worry—that either way, both mother and child would be safe and healthy if she followed his instructions.

Peter and Amalise waited in the room while Rebecca was taken off for the ultrasound test. Relief had lightened both their moods.

“Your real problem, Peter,” Amalise said “is how in the world you’re going to keep Rebecca in bed for the next few weeks, and at home until the birth.”

30

The room was dark. She’d asked
Peter to leave the curtains closed when he left for work. That fit her mood. The dark room matched the gloomy feeling inside.

Then she turned over, hugging the pillow and closing her eyes, hoping that she could go back to sleep because the thought of facing yet another day with the clock slowly ticking backward was driving her mad. It was a good metaphor, she thought. Her life was moving counterclockwise now. She’d made partner, and then everything had suddenly changed.

She’d been lying in this bed for almost a week now. This was only the middle of October and she couldn’t imagine how she’d survive the next six weeks, with Amalise downtown bonding day by day with Roberts Engineering. Images of the bustle continuing without her at Mangen & Morris rose. Her new office was going to waste. She could see Amalise and Preston and Raymond and Doug all moving forward, while she moved backward. They’d be laughing with friends, their telephones ringing, people coming and going, arguing in conference rooms, or maybe off to Bailey’s for lunch. But they were there, and she was here, and life as she had known it had suddenly stopped.

She pounded the pillow with her fist. Then, gently, so as not to disturb Daisy, she rolled onto her back and flung her arms out to the sides, hitting the bed with both fists. Then she stared at the ceiling, feeling hopeless. Because, there was nothing else that she could do.

Beside her, on the bedside table, the telephone rang. She turned her head and looked at it. Her first impulse was to let it ring. So she let it ring three times, and then couldn’t stand it anymore and picked it up.

Rose Marie was on the other end. The files that Rebecca had said she needed to work on Brightfield’s brief would be delivered to her in a little while. Amalise would drop them off. Rebecca told her secretary where the key was hidden in the garage, and then she hung up.

Pushing herself up, slowly she crawled out of bed. She would take a shower. She would brush her hair and put on a bit of lipstick. Perhaps that would cheer her up. Besides, there was no way in the world she’d let anyone see her looking like this. Not even Amalise.

A half-hour later, Rebecca heard the door open downstairs. Amalise called out, and Rebecca yelled to come on up.

“Hey,” Amalise said when she breezed in, hugging a stack of file folders to her chest. “This room’s too dark,” she said, setting the files down on the bed beside Rebecca. There was a book on top of the files, she saw.

“It’s good to see you.”

“You’re just glad to see a living human being. This place is a morgue.”

Amalise walked to the windows on the far side of the room. “I can’t stay,” she said over her shoulders as she yanked a curtain aside. Sunlight streamed in. “I’m late. I’ve got to meet Jude. We’ve got a parent-teacher conference at Luke’s school this afternoon.”

Rebecca watched in silence as Amalise pulled each curtain aside and the room turned from dark to light. When she’d finished this, she did the same with the windows on each side of the bed. Then she rushed to Rebecca’s side, leaned down, planted a kiss on her forehead, and said that she was sorry that she had to leave. That she’d be back tomorrow for a long visit. And then she was gone.

Rebecca stared after her for a moment, wondering if she’d just seen a mirage.

Then she reached for the files that Amalise had left beside her, and the book slid off onto the bed. Picking it up, she turned it to the front cover. It was a Bible.

She smiled. First the curtains and the light; then a Bible. That was just like Amalise. She put the Bible down on the bed and lifted a file from the top of the stack. She’d asked Brightfield to send transcripts of the trial in the lower court for her work on his appellate brief. Reading the transcripts would take a while, but she certainly had the time. Flipping through the pages, she scanned several. Then with a sigh, she closed the file again.

Maybe later. She put the file on top of the others and looked down at the Bible beside her.

A slip of paper was stuck between the pages. Amalise again. Curiosity won. Pursing her lips, Rebecca picked up the book and opened it to the page marked by the first slip. There, in bold red ink, Amalise had circled a passage. The marked words read:

“Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Amalise was incorrigible. She let out a laugh, and glanced at the top of the page. Matthew: Chapter Six. This was verse 34. Then she lifted her eyes to read the verses above, from the beginning of the poetic wisdom. At the end of chapter six Amalise had written: “Rebecca, also see John 19:35.”

She pressed her lips together, irritated that she was so predictable. Amalise had known she’d read on.

It took a few minutes to find. She wasn’t used to the organizing system. But after she found the passage, and read it, she rested her head back on the pillows and pondered the words. “He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows he is telling the truth.” From the book of John, chapter 19, verse 35. They were the words that any lawyer would want to hear from a witness. They were words that touched the heart of a woman who wanted to seek answers.

She set the book down on her lap, thinking of the baby growing inside of her. If anything was evidence of a miracle, it was the very existence of Daisy.

And then she picked up Amalise’s Bible again and found the beginning of the book of John, the witness. And she began to read.

Part Two

The Trial

31

Tuesday, november 30, 1982.
First day
of the trial.